As the title suggests, why does Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 require so much RAM?

I have had this problem on two laptops, if I start browsing the internet, so long as the first window is open, (even if it is the only window open). IE will continue to suck up epic amounts of RAM, until the computers RAM usage is at 100%, at which point, the IE stops responding, and I have to force it to close the internet explorer.

The computer is fully up to date. The computer has 2GB of RAM, and so far the most that IE has used was 1.7GB, the other 0.3GB was used by other programs.

As you can imagine this is extremely annoying. Is there anything that I can do to reduce the amount of RAM that is used?

My Firefox
(For you older FireFox users, my theme is actually using an Extension called "Stylish", the skin itself is known as a "Style" which is called "Vista Black Firefox Sapphire", I'd link to it but the website is down, the previous URL for it was http://userstyles.org/styles/8924

Tell Firefox to show the "Bookmark Toolbar" (that is the black bar on the picture) [View>Toolbars>Bookmark Toolbar]

if you want to access firefox addition settings (and have the ability to screw up Firefox), on the address bar type: about:config, I never counted how many options they are, but it looks about 1200 options (yes, there is a search engine for this), enjoy!

__________________Nv GPU Pro - Automate your graphic card overclock base on what you run, reduce power and noise. Designed for Laptops and Desktops. Filled with features.

The version of FireFox that you most likely installed a few months ago was probably the 3.0 Beta, this as sense gone live and from my experiences only crashes if you have 489 different tabs open (Unable to re-create this crash).

Prometheus, I could not agree with you more. Everyone that does not experience the problem is either oblivious or does not use the multiple tab / window feature. From what I understand, each process run by IE, Firefox, etc... is put in to a container. The container has what the process needs to run. If 2 processes need the same protocol to run, then both processes run seperate protocols inside the container. So, if you have a bunch of tabs or windows open, every time there is an ad or video a seperate entity of flash is needed to run. So you start to eat up a bunch of memory. When you close a certain tab, there is a feature that stores part of the tabs info to memory incase you navigate back to that site during your session. Until you close the main window these occurances will build up. IT IS SO ANNOYING. Try turning off cache, turn all plug-ins off and only run the ones you need when you need them. You can also turn down the amount of memory that your browser is allowed to grab.